“And Americans like you,” Jessie said, taking his forearm and squeezing it
gently. “At least this one does.”
He drew in a deep breath, inhaling her perfume. “My dear, you smell like the
Tokaj of the emperors.”
“I’m sure you say that to all the girls,” she said, pouting.
He looked severe for a moment. “Certainly not,” he said. Then he smiled again.
“Only the pretty ones.”
“I bet you knew some pretty girls from Molnar once upon a time,” she said.
He shook his head. “I grew up farther up the Tisza. Nearer Sarospatak. I moved
here only in the fifties. Already, no more Molnar. Just rocks and stones and
trees. My son, you see, belongs to the generation of the disappointed. A
csalódottak. People like me, who survived Bêla Kun and Miklós Horthy and Perene
Szálasi and Mátyás Rákosi —we know when to be grateful. We never had great
expectations. So we cannot be greatly disappointed. I have a son who pours beer
for Ruthenians all day, but do you see me complaining?”
“We really should be getting along now,” Janson put in.
Jessie’s eyes did not leave the old man’s. “Well, things used to be a whole lot
different, I know that. Didn’t there used to be some baron from these parts,
some old Magyar nobleman?”
“Count Ferenczi-Novak’s lands used to stretch up that mountainside.” He gestured
vaguely.
“Now that must have been a sight. A castle and everything?”
“Once,” he said, distractedly. He was not eager for her to leave. “A castle and
everything.”
“Gosh, I wonder if there’d be anybody alive who might have known that count guy.
Ferenczi-Novak, was it?”
The old man was silent a moment, his features looking nearly Asiatic in repose.
“Well,” he said. “There’s the old woman, Grandma Gitta. Gitta Békesi. Can speak
English, too. They say she learned as a girl when she worked in the castle. You
know how it is—the Russian noblewomen always insisted on speaking French, the
Hungarian noblewomen always insisted on speaking English. Everybody always wants
to sound like what they aren’t… ”
“Békesi, you said?” Jessie prompted gently.
“Maybe not such a good idea. Most people say she lives in the past. I can’t
promise she’s all there. But she’s all Magyar. Which is more than you can say
for some.” He laughed, a phlegm-rattling laugh. “Lives in an old farmhouse, the
second left, and then another left, up around the bend.”
“Can we tell her you sent us?”
“Better not,” he said. “I don’t want her cross at me. She doesn’t like strangers
much.” He laughed again. “And that’s an understatement!”
“Well, you know what we say in America,” Jessie said, giving him a soulful look.
“There are no strangers here, only friends we haven’t met.”
The son, his white apron still stretched around his round belly, stepped onto
the porch with a look of smoldering resentment. “That’s another thing about you
Americans,” he sneered. “You have an infinite capacity for self-delusion.”
Situated halfway up a gently sloping hill, the old two-story brick farmhouse
looked like thousands of others that dotted the countryside. It could have been
a century old, or two, or three. Once, it might have housed a prosperous peasant
and his family. But, as a closer approach made clear, the years had not been
kind to it. The roof had been replaced with sheets of rusting, corrugated steel.
Trees and vines grew wild around the house, blocking off many of the windows.
The tiny attic windows, beneath the roof, had a cataract haze; at some point
glass had been replaced with plastic, which was starting to decompose in the
sun. A few fissures ran from the foundation halfway up the side of the front
wall. Shutters were encrusted with peeling paint. It was hard to believe that
anyone lived here. Janson recalled the old man’s amused look, the laughter in
his eyes, and wondered whether he had played some Magyar prank on them.
“I think that’s what you call a fixer-upper,” Jessie said.
They pulled the Lancia off to the side of the road—a road that was hardly
deserving of the name, for its pavement was crumbled and pitted by neglect.
Proceeding on foot, they made their way down what had once been a cow path, now
almost impassable with overgrown brambles. The house was nearly a mile down the
slope, the very picture of neglect.
As they approached the entrance, though, Janson heard a noise. An eerie, low
rumble. After a moment, he recognized it as the growl of a dog. And then they
heard a throaty bark.
Through narrow slot glass set into the door, he saw the white figure springing
impatiently. It was a Kuvasz, an ancient Hungarian breed, used as a guard dog
for more than a millennium. The breed was little known in the West, but it was
all too well known to Janson, who years ago had had an encounter with one. Like
other canines bred to be guard dogs—mastiffs, pit bulls, Alsatians,
Dobermans—they were fiercely protective of their masters and aggressive toward
strangers. A fifteenth-century Magyar king was said to trust only his Kuvasz
dogs, not people. The breed had a noble build, with its protruding forechest,
powerful musculature, long muzzle, and thick white coat. But Janson had seen
such white fur stained with human blood. He knew what a slathering Kuvasz was
capable of when roused to action. The incisors were sharp, the jaws powerful,
and its light-footed stance could instantly become a pounce that seemed to turn
the animal into nothing but muscle and teeth.
Gitta Bekesi’s animal was not the giant creature spoken of in ancient times; it
was three feet tall and 120 pounds, Janson estimated. At the moment, it seemed
to be pure hostile energy. Few creatures were as deadly as an enraged Kuvasz.
“Mrs. Békesi?” Janson called out.
“Go away!” a quavering voice replied.
“That’s a Kuvasz, isn’t it?” Janson said. “What a handsome animal! There’s
nothing like them, is there?”
“That handsome animal would like nothing so much as to clamp its jaws around
your throat,” the old woman said, her voice gaining resolve. It floated through
the open window; she herself remained in the shadows.
“It’s just that we’ve traveled a long, long way,” Jessie said. “From America?
You see, my grandfather, he came from this village called Molnar. People say
you’re the one person who might be able to tell us something about the place.”
There was a long pause, silent save for the rasping growl of the enraged guard
dog.
Jessie looked at Janson and whispered. “That dog’s really got you spooked,
hasn’t it?”
“Ask me sometime about Ankara, 1978,” Janson replied quietly.
“I know about Ankara.”
“Trust me,” Janson said. “You don’t.”
Finally, the woman broke her silence. “Your grandfather,” she said. “What was
his name?”
“Kis is what the family was called,” she said, repeating the deliberately
generic name. “But I’m more interested in getting a feel for the place, the
world he grew up in. Not necessarily him in particular. Really, I just want
something to remember … ”
“You lie,” she said. “You lie!” Her voice was a wail. “Strangers come with lies.
You should be ashamed of yourself. Now go! Go, or I will give you something to
remember.” They heard the distinctive sound of a shotgun cartridge being
chambered.
“Oh shit,” Jessie whispered. “What now?”
Janson shrugged. “When all else fails? The truth.”
“Hey, lady,” Jessie said. “You ever hear of a Count Janos Ferenczi-Novak?”
A long silence ensued. In a voice like sandpaper, the woman demanded, “Who are
you?”
Ahmad Tabari was impressed by the rapidity with which the intelligence chief
worked. It was now their third meeting, and already Al-Mustashar had started to
work his magic.
“We work in phases,” the Libyan told him, his eyes bright. “A shipment of small
arms is even now on its way toward your men at Nepura.” He referred to the port
in the northwesternmost point of Kenna. “These arrangements were not easy to
broker. I assume that there will be no difficulties with interception. The
Anuran gunboats have created some difficulty for your people, have they not?”
The Kagama warrior was cautious in his reply. “One steps back to step forward.
Even the Prophet’s struggles did not always go smoothly. Otherwise, they would
not have been struggles. Remember the Truce of Hu-daybiyah.” He referred to the
compact that Muhammad had made with the denizens of Khaybar, not far from
Medina.
Ibrahim Maghur nodded. “Only when the Prophet’s troops were strong enough did he
break the pact, overrun the Khaybar rulers, and expel the infidels from Arabia.”
His eyes flashed. “Are your troops strong enough?”
“With your help, and Allah’s, they will be.”
“You are a Caliph indeed,” said Colonel Maghur.
“When first we met, you told me that history was made by great men,” the Kagama
said after a while.
“This is what I believe.”
“It would follow that history can also be unmade by great men. Men of power and